Manchester police reprimanded for poor data handling after losing CCTV footage

A reprimand has been issued to Greater Manchester Police (GMP) over what the UK Information Commissioner’s Office calls “serious shortcomings in how they handle CCTV footage.”

The shortcomings in question involve losing two hours of video footage of a person held in custody.

“When responding to a subsequent related subject access request, the force later realised two hours of the footage was missing,” says a release from the ICO. “GMP states that, despite all attempts, it is unable to recover the missing two hours of footage. This led GMP to self-reporting a personal data breach to the ICO on 5 September 2023.”

In its compliance investigation, the ICO found “two key failings” in GMP’s data protection practices and handling of sensitive biometric data: “a misunderstanding between GMP staff, with regards to the responsibility to conduct a quality check of the retained footage” and “a lack of policies and guidelines within GMP to identify that quality checks were required or who is responsible for this task.”

Sally Anne Poole, head of investigations at the ICO, says “it is clear in this case that Greater Manchester Police failed its obligation to keep the complainant’s personal data safe and demonstrated serious shortcomings in how it handles CCTV footage. Data protection is not an afterthought; it is a core responsibility. In this case, we see the potential consequences when this responsibility is not properly adhered to.”

“Police forces and public bodies across the country can learn from failures like this and ensure they have the right systems and oversight in place to prevent these mistakes from happening again. Public trust depends on it.”

Since they lost the footage, GMP has implemented “clearer retention policies for CCTV footage” and made “proactive investment in its surveillance and security system infrastructure.” The force has also implemented a policy to ensure that only authorised personnel have access to footage stored in the CCTV server.

UK police chiefs have asked the government for £220 million (US$296 million) annually for the next three years to fund science and technology projects, including live facial recognition, in addition to the £2 billion ($1.4 billion) it plans to spend on digital technology and data analytics over the next financial year.

Article Topics

biometric data  |  data protection  |  facial recognition  |  Greater Manchester Police  |  Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO)  |  police  |  video surveillance